The 13 Biggest Memes of 2016, According to Tumblr

1. Tag Yourself

The "tag yourself" meme originated on Tumblr and is the biggest meme on the site in 2016.

It's essentially a personality quiz in which a person is presented with intentionally bad characters and asked to pick one. The above memes uses Dorito flavors, and some others have used everything from flowers to stick figures. There are also "tag yourself" memes with classic poets, emojis and Taylor Swift's album covers.

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"Tag yourself art history edition."

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2. Moodboard

Moodboards are 3x3 square images meant to evoke a certain mood or feeling by centering around a certain theme.

The one pictured above is described as a "relationship moodboard" for enbian (nonbinary/nonbinary) and queerplatonic relationships.

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This moodboard is for Hufflepuffs.

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3. Inktober

During the month of October, many Tumblr users participate in "inktober" by creating a drawing every day with traditional inking tools.

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Some "inktober" rhinos.

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4. History of Japan

After YouTuber Bill Wortz told the history of Japan in a nine-minute video complete with music, fun and now iconic phrases such as "how bout I do anyway" and "hire a samuari," "history of Japan" became a huge meme on Tumblr.

Now users take phrases and screenshots from the video and apply them to other situations. Above, it a screenshot from the video paired with a relevant scene from Hamilton.

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The "history of Japan" meme has even found itself combined with other Tumblr jokes and memes, such as "the signs as," a meme where users apply the characteristics of the 12 zodiac signs to things and situations. Last year, it was the second biggest meme on Tumblr.

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5. Gemsona

Gemsonas are magical extraterrestrial beings based on the ‘Gem’ species in Steven Universe. Tumblr users use simple shapes and a weapon choice to create original characters or themselves as gems such as Topez and Amethyst.

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A gemsona.

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6. The signs as

This meme is still popular, although it's ranked at number six this year rather than two.

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7. Draw the squad

This is another art meme that involves drawing multiple characters (usually from a favorite fandom) in flamboyant, outrageous poses or precarious situations.

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A "draw the squad" illustration.

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8. Dat boi

Dat boi is the meme of the frog on the unicycle. It's popular beyond Tumblr.

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The "dat boi" meme sees a lot of collaboration with other popular memes.

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9. Petty revenge

It's exactly what it sounds like. This meme is all about posting memes and stories about how you got petty revenge. Exes and cheating are big topics here.

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Here are some tales of petty revenge.

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10. Doge

This year, Doge has moved three spots up to 10th place.

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More Doge.

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11. Userboxes

Userboxes contain a little bit of information about someone. They originated from Wikipedia and were meant to be put on user's pages, but on Tumblr people frequently reblog those that apply to them.

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12. Ask meme

Ask meme, which simply involves users publishing lists of questions and others reblogging with their answers, has fallen in the rankings. It was number 7 last year.

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13. Damn Daniel

While this meme about Daniel in the white Vans mostly lived in spoken conversation, it had a huge presence on tumblr as well.

Tumblr has been looking at data too. This morning, the site released the most reblogged memes of 2016. The list sees some a few classics that remained on the list from last year (including Doge and “the signs as”) and also saw some newcomers like Damn Daniel.

Flip through the slides above to see which memes made the list this year.